Mass Effect Drabbles
by Miri1984
Summary: One shots set out of sequence in the lives of my Shepards - Vivian, Jane and Katherine  Super-Paragon Vanguard, Lazy-Paragon Infiltrator and Renegon-Engineer respectively . Set all over the place. Warning for endings of ME spoilers.
1. Home

**Title:** Home

**Game:** Mass Effect 3

**Characters:** Ashley Williams, Garrus Vakarian

**Rating:** K

*******SPOILERS FOR MASS EFFECT 3 ENDINGS*******

"What are you doing?"

"Calibrating. Joker's little stunt screwed with the alignments of the main gun a surprising amount. I suspect he may have done it deliberately."

She snorts. "He can do that?"

"That man knows more about how every system of this ship is integrated than…" the Turian stops and focuses back down on his work and she feels herself wince. They don't like to talk about EDI. The ship feels empty without her.

She leans against the doorframe and studies him, bent forward over a panel, too tall to work at it comfortably, involved, absorbed. She can't read Turian expressions - the Commander always said she couldn't either, but she thinks he looks older.

His father and sister are two years journey away now, without the Mass Relays. She's told him she can get him there, though. The Normandy's still the fastest, and god knows the Alliance owes those of them that are left that much. She can stuff the cargo hold with Krogans and Quarians and Turians and be one of the ships that are taking on that massive burden - taking everyone back to their homes, even if they're not sure their homes are even there any more…

Sure as hell Earth can't keep them all. Not in the state it's in now.

He said no. She wonders if it's because he thinks he's closer to the Commander - on the ship that used to be hers, doing the things he used to do before she died the first time, as though he can turn back time and be what he was before then.

As though any of them can do that.

He's looking at her. The visor that she'd begun to think was glued to his head was gone - blown off by the Reaper beam that marked the beginning of the end for everything they knew and she hasn't realised until now that his eyes, deeply shadowed by the sharp ridges of his brow line - are actually blue and if she lets herself think that way - extremely…

…human.

"Ash, what are you doing here?" he says finally. Exhaustion makes the slight buzz in his Turian voice more pronounced.

"I think I'm asking you that."

He straightens and sighs. "Am I not welcome?"

"Of course you are. Same as the rest of them. Even the damned Prothean. More than them, actually. You were here first, after all. You and Wrex." The first aliens, she means, and she wonders if she offends him with that. The Turians get it more than the other races do, though. They didn't spent years fighting each other for nothing.

She thinks of him as her friend despite it - despite everything. She wonders if her father is turning in his grave.

_You and the Commander saved my damned life. More times than just on Virmire, too._

Wrex had been on the first ship back to Tuchanka. At least he'd get to see his kids while they were still _kids, _which was more than the few Salarians who'd been serving on Alliance ships (not in the fleet, no, the Salarian fleet was all safe and snug at home, thanks very much) who wouldn't get back until _their _children were grandparents…

"If I'm making you uncomfortable I can always go back with the Primarch," he says.

"No, no… Garrus, no you're not making me…" she rubs at her forehead. "Dammit."

He chuckles. "I wondered how long it'd take me to make you swear. Shepard used to make bets on it."

She laughs, a small sound at first that breaks out of her control and suddenly they're both laughing, leaning against the console, unfettered and desperate and _exactly what the Commander would have wanted._

When the spasms reside they're both leaning, backs against the console, and she's wiping tears from her eyes. They stay like that - in contented silence - for a few moments.

She glances at him out of the corner of her eye. "You ok?" she says.

His mandibles flare briefly and he looks straight ahead for a long moment and even though the face is alien, unreadable, the lines of grief are etched in the way he stands. But he cocks his head and nods, once, turning to look down at her with those too-human eyes.

"Yeah," he says. "You?"

She smiles.

"I think so. Yeah.


	2. Omega

"Omega," Miranda said, "what a shithole."

"Oh, I don't know," Viv said, fiddling with the scope on her pistol. "Nicer than where I grew up." She sniffed the air. "Smells better too."

Jacob gave her a weird look. "Smells better? Where did _you _grow up?"

She cocked an eyebrow at him. "Earth," she shrugged. "Unwashed aliens smell better than unwashed humans. Perhaps it's just a personal preference."

"Yeah. Right."

"I wouldn't expect a member of Cerberus to share that preference," she said, but she said it under her breath. Jacob might have _used _to be Alliance, but he was oily, and she suspected everyone on her new ship of being more than willing to shaft any aliens they might come across in favour of humanity. _As if humanity is better than the rest of these people._

Omega was like a breath of fresh air for her. Familiar, in the way that poverty was always familiar to her, in the way that politicking for power was familiar to her. She could even pick out little tell tale signs that there were gangs here - not the mercs, Blood Pack and Blue Sun and Eclipse were easy to identify, but in the younger aliens, little markings that branded them part of this group or that…

She felt at home for the first time since she'd woken up in the lab. It put a spring in her step. Miranda and Jacob were both looking at her oddly.

"So we'll head into Afterlife and speak to Aria first."

"Why bother?" Miranda asked. "We know where to look for Mordin already - we'll just be wasting time."

Vivian shook her head, smiling slightly. "You don't know much about how this works, do you?" she said. "We're on Aria's turf. That Batarian was making it very clear that if we step out of line on Omega we'll find doing anything here _very _difficult."

"If we present ourselves to her doesn't it mean we give _her _the power?" Jacob said.

Vivian shrugged. "Not necessarily," she said. "It's a gesture of respect. If we show her that we respect her authority she'll give more of that authority to us. We just have to find out what she needs."

Miranda was eyeing the entrance to Afterlife looking vaguely disgusted. "We go in there then?"

Vivian flashed her a grin. "Do you like dancing, Miranda?"

Miranda didn't bother to answer, just sighed and started walking up the stairs.

Afterlife was exactly what Vivian had expected, with less violence. Aria was… less so. Vivian supposed that when you've been a gang boss for centuries you get better at it - she was far _far _more impressive than any of the petty scumbags Vivian had run errands for back on earth. She smiled to herself, thinking of her former comrades taking lessons at the feet of this delicate blue Asari on how to be powerful.

Most of her former associates would never get the credits together to go to Sol station, let alone go intersystem. They'd never seen an Asari and likely never would.

After a brief chat (there was no point in waxing lyrical with people like Aria) she eyed the merc recruiter outside the private room. He sized her up (at least that's what it looked like - she wasn't great at reading Batarian expressions) and straightened, and she approached him.

"How long do you think he has?" she said.

"Archangel?" That grin was downright nasty, no matter what species he was. "Not long."

Vivian sucked at her teeth and glanced at Miranda and Jacob. Mordin was important, but if they didn't get Archangel first, there was a chance he wouldn't be there to get.

"You going in?" the recruiter asked, eyeing her pistol.

She didn't bother to answer, just made her way down the stairs.

-0-

"We'd better hope he doesn't decide to shoot us before we can get to him," Jacob said as they surveyed the bridge they needed to cross. Every now and then a single, deadly shot would ring out, and a merc would fall. Almost always the shot went through whatever passed for the merc's eye - Archangel was _good_.

"Keep to cover," she hissed at Jacob. The man was so big and black and white (seriously, why did he wear a white suit, it made him stick out like a sore thumb) that he was the easiest target in the universe. She suspected the only reason he hadn't been shot was because Archangel knew they were on his side. Through a scope he would have seen her take down at least three mercs from behind with her pistol (no biotics, no charges, the noise would alert every merc on the bridge) even if she did have a sore spot on her shoulder from that one shot he'd gotten in.

Two Blue Suns were trying to hack the door when they got there. Miranda stunned them both with a slam and Jacob shot them once they were down. The door panel went green straight after, confirming what she'd thought.

Archangel knew they were coming, and he knew they were on his side.

The first glimpse she got of him was a sense of overwhelming blue-ness. Shiny blueness. That was some _nice_ armour. As he moved, though, turning around and removing his helmet, something caught in her chest - the same thing that had caught there when she'd seen Tali back on Freedom's Progress. She couldn't have stopped the grin that started to form if she'd tried and the rush of relief almost left her boneless.

"Shepard," that damn voice of his, purring through her. She wanted to hug him, but she wasn't even sure Turians _did _that, and he'd be all spiky and shiny any way. "I thought you were dead."

"Garrus! What are you doing here?"

"Just a little target practice. Keeping my skills sharp." The buzz in his voice was more pronounced than she remembered, and his eyes - well she would guess he looked tired or older or a combination of the two. She remembered Aria saying that he'd been holed up here for _days _and the thought was a sobering one.

"You ok?" she asked, frowning.

"Been better, but it sure is good to see a friendly face. Killing mercs is hard work, especially on my own."

He'd changed. Perhaps it was because he was tired, but he seemed… looser and easier. He'd always had that damned arrogant swagger, but now it felt like it might just have been earned…

"Since when did you start calling yourself Archangel?"

"It's just a name the locals gave me for… all my good deeds," he chuckled. "I don't mind it but please, it's just "Garrus" to you."

She could feel Miranda and Jacob shifting behind her. They knew who he was - of course they did, Miranda with her datapad full of Vivian's life would have all his details.

She made a face and wondered if the only person surprised that Garrus Vakarian was sitting in front of her was _her._

"How'd you manage to piss off every merc organisation in the Terminus systems?" she moved to a shelf stocked with clips and spare rifle parts, picking through it and smiling again.

"It wasn't easy. I really had to work at it. I'm amazed that they teamed up to fight me. They must _really _hate me."

She remembered the cold fury in the eyes of the Blue Suns lieutenant, the paranoia of Tarak and the rage of Garm. "They really hate you, Garrus. Trust me on this."

He laughed. "Well now, I'd be worried if they didn't, spending all this time trying to kill me."

She picked up a spare scope and turned it over in her fingers. It was worn and cracked - rubbish then. That rifle of his was getting a _lot _of use. "What are you doing out here on Omega?"

"I got fed up with all the bureaucratic crap on the citidel. Figured I could do more good on my own. At least it's not hard to find criminals here. All I have to do is point my gun and shoot."

"You nailed me good a couple of times by the way."

"Concussive rounds only. No harm done. Didn't want the mercs getting suspicious."

"Uh huh." She put the scope back on the shelf and grinned at him.

"If I wanted to do more than take your shields down, I'd have done it. Besides you were taking your sweet time. I needed to get you moving."

She blinked. _Was he flirting?_

"Well we got here. I don't think getting out will be as easy."

"No it won't. That bridge has saved my life - funneling all those witless idiots into scope. But it works both ways. They'll slaughter us if we try to get out that way."

Vivian was pretty sure she could get past them with a few biotic charges, but that would leave the rest of them holed up and alert the mercs. If she'd had Tali or Wrex back on the Normandy…

… but they only had Miranda and Jacob and she didn't think Zaeed would be open to storming a merc stronghold on the first day they'd met.

"We can't just sit here and wait for them to come to us," Jacob said. Hah. Man of action, that one. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

Garrus gave him a look. She wasn't good at reading Turian expressions, but something in the slight flutter of his mandibles made her want to try to learn. "It's not all that bad," he said. "This place has held them off so far… and with the three of you… I suggest we hold this location, wait for a crack in their defenses and take our chances. It's not a perfect plan, but it's a plan."

"I didn't like sneaking any way. Time to spill a little merc blood."

"Glad to see you haven't changed." She found herself smiling as he looked at her, a grin she hadn't been able to muster since waking up in the lab.

She punched his arm. "Good to see you, Garrus," she said softly, so the others couldn't hear.

"Likewise," he leaned forward and almost bumped his forehead against hers. The gesture confused her a little, but she brushed it off when the first of the mercs started to cross the bridge.


End file.
